Impact of Nursing Shortage

THE IMPACT OF NURSING SHORTAGE

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Nursing shortage simply means that the demand for nurses is so high than the number of nurses that the country or nursing schools can supply. It can also be due to lack of supply of professional and trained nurses.

Shortage of nurses in hospitals affects patient care hence their safety is at risk. Nurses may be overwhelmed, overworked, stressed and dissatisfied. The ratio of Nurses –to-patients is so high, and this causes stress and high job burnout and turnover.

The shortage of nurses also poses a threat to the quality of health offered in hospitals to the patients. The patients do not get the health care they want. In most countries of the world, nurses play a critical part in the health hospitals. One thing is for sure nurses are the largest population of workers in healthcare system. Hence, their dissatisfaction causes a series of failure in that organization.

Nurse shortage causes a lot of deaths during the time of emergencies. For example during disasters like earthquakes where a lot of injuries occur, the shortage of nurses  may lead to loss of lives since the few nurses who exist cannot attend fully to the injured casualties.

There are also ethical concerns caused by the shortage of nurses. Nurses do migrate to developed countries to pursue and develop their career and interests. In the event of migration, the nurses are sometimes exploited in their new countries. They are overworked and underpaid. Foreign nurses that have migrated find it hard to fulfill their desired dreams due to the frustrations.

Nursing shortage has a serious impact on the healthcare. One, there is always an increased nurses –to-patient workloads. The nurses are so overworked to the point they are frustrated with their work. Dissatisfaction will lead to job turnover.